


if i'm gonna die, let's die somewhere pretty (like a juicebox canyon)

by spookysp_ace (summermoonsdawn)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst, Happy (ish) ending, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), Kaiju (Pacific Rim), M/M, blood mention, hospitals?, injuries, not really fluffy... but there's a couple good moments, really it's a pacific rim au so, uh... no one dies so??, yes that's the title and i adore it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23627026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summermoonsdawn/pseuds/spookysp_ace
Summary: Semi Eita disappeared five years ago.He needs a new drift partner.Kuroo's never successfully drifted with anyone.He'd given up on that.Then, they meet.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Semi Eita
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35





	if i'm gonna die, let's die somewhere pretty (like a juicebox canyon)

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all, so it's been a while.
> 
> i originally started this with the whumptober 2019 prompt "stitches" and the inktober 2019 prompt "run" and now here we are
> 
> songs to listen to // [soldier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32W3J7XaNH8) and [everything's not lost](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IywjWWlxF8)
> 
> they're both really good songs. solider is where the lyrics come from, everything's not lost is the song semi's sings.
> 
> please enjoy!!
> 
> ALSO!! if you need a better explanation of the warnings, my twitter and tumblr are in the end notes. i'd be happy to answer those before you read!!

_~_

_Soldier keep on marchin' on_

_Head down 'til the work is done_

_Waiting on that morning sun_

_Soldier keep on marchin' on_

_~_

  
  


Kuroo stared at the man laying in the hospital bed. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t. Now that all the blood had been cleaned away, but—

But.

He could still see the perfect cut slicing across Semi’s face, long and taunting. There had been so much blood where the drivesuit helmet had made its mark, material cracking and slicing against his partners face.

There’d be a scar. There were always scars after battles in this line of work. Occupational hazard and things like that. But they’d hardly moved on from past emotional trauma and damage done from years earlier, and seeing that red crimson mirroring the blow that drove Semi from piloting again brought a clench to Kuroo’s jaw. 

Like wounds reopening, when they’d just started to scar over.

And it wasn’t like Kuroo had left the battle unscathed, far from it. His body littered in the bruises the kaiju had placed on their Jaeger. His muscles ached a fierce fire through his core, left from the adrenaline that dragged him from the fallen Jaeger.

They had slung an empty ship from the harbor, driving it straight through the kaiju’s shoulder. The kaiju hadn’t gotten up, and over the comms they could hear the technicians stating that there was no longer a signature coming from the kaiju.

They had thought it was over, thought it had fallen–but Takeda-san had been right.

Two kaiju, both category four.

How they’d both made it to this point was a miracle crafted by their own hands.

Kuroo would admit that their partnership in the beginning was tentative. He knew they had both wanted, needed, to desperately drift and pilot together but it had been years since Semi had last synced with anyone. And Kuroo?

Well. Never.

He wished he could have saved them both from this fate. From their near death.

  
  
  


~

  
  
  


The first time Kuroo laid his eyes on Semi was during a triple jaeger drop outside of the Hong Kong bay. At the time Kuroo had been deployed to work there as a chemical engineer, helping them implement kaiju interfaces into their current jaegers and into their overall interfaces across the eight shatterdomes around the Pacific Rim. 

From inside the Shatterdome in mission control he was helping to give the rangers and their jaegers directions on the category four kaiju that had made its appearance. Marshall Ukai had given the call for the three jaegers to remain within the miracle mile, or the defense point off the coast line of the bay. Kuroo had relayed orders with other technicians as they watched the progress of the fight, as they continued to keep an eye on the neural frequencies between the ranger pilots.

He listened and heeded no mind as Marshall Ukai relayed that Semi and his co-pilot must remain stationary as the other two jaegers took the seemingly withdrawn kaiju compared to the ones they’d had in the past.

That had been before the kaiju had sent a shock through one of the jaegers with a slam from its giant spiked tail, immediately throwing one jaeger into another.

_“Marshall, all of our systems are blown,”_ one pilot called, “ _Iron Vapor isn’t going anywhere.”_

_“Eight Aces is also dead in the water! Left leg is down for the count!”_

Semi and his co-pilot had ignored Marshall Ukai’s calls to not engage the kaiju until they dropped another jaeger as backup.

Despite the heavy warnings to draw back, they moved forward with even heavier steps of the jaeger sloshing through the water–they’d known that without backout they weren’t going to make it but–

_“With all due respect, Marshall,”_ Semi had said over the call system, _“we refuse to leave them hanging in the water, circled by that thing. Oryx Wrath heading in.”_

That was before he watched, terrified through bright screens, as the kaiju grew wings from two of its six legs. Then it had taken into the air. The kaiju rocketed straight to the sky before its clawed feet rained down towards the jaeger–like a hawk diving to catch an unassuming fish in the water. 

There were screams through the communication systems, but silence in the control room as they could only watch as Semi and his co-pilot’s jaeger was torn straight in half. The marshall and other technicians fixed horrified eyes as one of the pilots was ripped from one side before being thrown to the roaring sea.

The lone standing jaeger dropped to its knees. The metal groaned harmonizing with the rotor aircraft above, dropping the backup jaeger.

  
  
  


~

  
  
  


Over the next five years, kaiju activity rose and there was nothing that a declining jaeger program could do but watch on silently. Out of over fifty jaegers that the program had once looked to as the guiding light in the dark, there were just eight left in active duty. They had moved location from the Hong Kong Shatterdome, and made base in the Tokyo Shatterdome.

The kaiju had begun killing and destroying at a faster rate than the program could support, and the world had decided to put their efforts into better places.

A jaeger pilot being ripped from their drift partner, and then disappearing, had been the least of the world's problems.

“You’re gonna want to see this,” Kuroo heard. He’d been making his way from the tech lab–honestly he couldn’t figure out _why_ the nuclear pulses weren’t syncing with the neural signals of this new drivesuit helmet Marshall Ukai had him working on _but–_ then he was stopped.

Kuroo raised an eyebrow towards Oikawa. The other man was dressed in workout clothes, like he’d come from training in the kwoon room. Which was likely considering the rangers spent 50% of their day training with their co-pilot, so that they could better equalize their partnership in the drift and then in battle as well.

Oikawa was a good jaeger pilot, one of the best rangers they were lucky to still have. To the day he’d run fourteen missions.

Obviously the universe forgot to take out some of the self-importance that came with being one of best jaeger pilots. Kuroo knew he meant well most of the time, but other times he could really just yank his chain if he wasn’t in a good mood. The both of them.

It was one of those times. One where thirty hours with no sleep, Marshall Ukai on his back, and Takeda-san constantly in the lab going on about _two_ _fucking cat-four kaiju_ would do that.

“See what?” Kuroo asked, trying to steer his thoughts away from oh, impending doom.

Oikawa put his hands on his hips, tilted his head a little bit, “Something interesting.”

“You’re gonna need to give me a little more than that Oikawa,” he sighed. Exhaustion settled into his bones–and who was he kidding, they were all exhausted after fighting a war that didn’t seem to have an end in sight. “For whatever fucking reason, Marshall Ukai wants these suits ready before the next kaiju appearance. Takeda-san has made it pretty clear that’s probably going to be less than two weeks so–”

“Yes, yes, very important stuff I’m sure. But how about the reappearance of one supposedly retired jaeger pilot?”

He blinked.

And blinked again.

Was Kuroo hearing him correctly? There was only _one_ jaeger pilot that disappeared, seemingly off the face of the earth.

“It’s been five years.”

Oikawa nodded. “It has.”

“Why now?”

“Why don’t you come and see?”

Without another word, Oikawa turned around and headed in the direction of the kwoon room. 

They walked in silence, past walls of steel and concrete, straight past other technicians, jaeger mechanists, and trainees before they heard the distinct _clack clack_ of hanbo staffs. 

A round of _ooh’s_ followed as they made their way into the room. A crowd had gathered of what appeared to be candidates waiting for their turn, as well as some of their current rangers.

Marshall Ukai stood at the head of the room. And standing next to him was Daichi, hands folded behind his back looking over the combat floor. On the opposite side was Kiyoko in similar form.

Kuroo pulled his eyes away from the Marshall and Daichi, both of which must have been working behind the scenes for ages looking, searching, rolling over guesses and–

_Thwack._

Kuroo watched intently as a man in the middle of the floor crashed his opponent to the ground, holding the hanbo to their face.

Semi Eita.

He remembered him. He had shorter hair at the time–hair that was now pulled into a small ponytail in the back– and he’d worn a fierce scowl on his face a majority of the time, but Kuroo would never forget. It had been five years but he remembered that face, glowing through a screen, emotions ripped apart on his face as he felt the life force of his co-pilot fading from his consciousness.

The screams, the heaviness taking over the rangers face, and immense sorrow as Kuroo had whispered _Co-pilot signature is gone, Marshall._

“Four points to zero,” Daichi called as the ash blonde man stood up. The point of the assessment Semi was going through was to find someone to drift with, to dive into the system and eventually battle kaiju again. The more even the score, the more likely that they would be drift compatible. The idea was to not decimate your opponent, but to be able to find someone to share the neural handshake with–specifically with memories, emotions, current experiences with in and out of the jaeger.

Kuroo had tried syncing with hundreds of pilots.

The results were always the same. And after a while of back-to-back failures to find a partner to drift with, Marshall Ukai had asked him to step back. They couldn’t afford to lose the pilots they had, but definitely couldn’t afford to lose one of their top technicians either.

On occasion he’d still come in to train with some of the rangers. Daichi, after sparring with Kuroo, had more than once said it was a shame that the Marshall had stopped pulling candidates for Kuroo to work with. He’d said there was something graceful about his movements that none of the current pilots had a match to but that he remembered one– _one_ –pilot that had such a similar, albeit a bit more abrasive, grace in combat. Then followed up saying it was unfortunate, but understandable, that said pilot would go missing without a trace.

Or with very few traces.

“Let me try.”

Everyone in the room turned their eyes on Kuroo, but all he could focus on was the dark gaze Semi shot him. The man stood straighter as he leaned on the hanbo staff. The white workout shirt was a little large on the man’s shoulders, but faded grey sweats hugging his legs proved he still had powerful muscle. 

As did the person still gasping for breath on the floor.

Daichi and Kiyoko both turned to the Marshall, whispering amongst one another. Oikawa knocked his shoulder against Kuroo’s though, muttering close to his ear, “Told you it was interesting.”

He didn’t wait for permission, instead working at the buttons on his top before shrugging it off to just the black undershirt tucked into a pair of cargo pants. The entire time, Semi continued to lean onto his hanbo staff, eyebrows raised at Kuroo.

And it went a little like this.

Oikawa threw another hanbo staff in Kuroo’s direction, and he caught it in one hand. Gripping the staff, his exhaustion rolled off his shoulders as adrenaline tingled through his system.

“Well, well,” he said, stepping onto the edge of the mat, “look what the cat dragged in.”

Semi stepped away from his staff, spinning it around in a figure-eight pattern, before it balanced on the dorsal of his palm.

“I’m not the one who looks like they were dragged in,” Semi countered, tone low, but not winded. Of the two of them, Semi did look rather refreshed, even if he had just trounced a number of other ranger trainees quite literally into the ground. His hair was pushed back and sweaty, bangs hanging just around his cheek bones, the rest pulled back into its ponytail. 

This close, Semi’s eyes weren’t even dark as they stared at him from across the mat. They were detached. They weren’t stony and immovable like Kuroo had hoped. They only looked as if someone had tried to splash water into his face, only to come face to face with an abyss and never know if the water made contact with the bottom.

“Do I really look that bad? I was trying to make ‘sleepless’ a new fad–”

Semi’s hanbo staff jumped from the back of Semi’s palm with nimble movements, before the end of the staff was touching Kuroo’s shoulder.

“One to zero,” Daichi called behind him, something akin to humor in his tone.

Kuroo, on more than one occasion, had been told he liked to provoke people. For the most part, he could tell when he needed to back off, but other times the itch under his skin got a bit too great to ignore.

And remember, he’s working on thirty hours of no sleep.

“You don’t like my hair that much?” Kuroo said, watching Semi’s eyebrows raise once more. But ah–there it was, a little twitch in his expression, right between his eyebrows.

Semi pulled back the staff, and settled back in the start position. “You could say that. It looks a little greasy for my taste.”

The man’s eyes were tugged only for the briefest of moments from Kuroo’s face, but just enough and–

_Thwack!_

“One to one,” Kuroo whispered into Semi’s ear, while his own staff tapped Semi’s leg.

And it continued like that.

One to two.

Two to two.

Three to two.

Until Semi had an expression similar to excitement, and joy, relief; like the water from before had touched the bottom of the well, had splashed beautifully in Semi’s face.

Until Daichi called from nearby, “Four to three.”

After Semi had taken his staff and flipped Kuroo over, until he was blinking up at Semi’s face. Damp ash blonde locks had fallen out of its hold and framed an indifferent glare transformed into an almost feral grin. 

“Hello, co-pilot,” Semi said.

  
  
  


~

  
  
  


“You’re going to feel everything I felt that day.”

“I know. Trust your pain to me.”

That was the first time they ever drifted. And it was–

_Horrifying._

Even after, Kuroo could still feel the ghost-drift of Semi’s previous co-pilot. That terrifying stretch of skin, bones snapping, and then?

Empty.

Nothing beyond. Like a cavern of stalactites, dripping cold water to an even icier abyss.

  
  
  


~

_Head in the dust, feet in the fire_

_Labour on that midnight wire_

_Listening for that angel choir_

_You got nowhere to run_

_~_

Their first mission together had been rough, to say the least. It was almost two months after they’d first drifted–after over and over practicing, days in the kwoon room training with one another, and watching as other teams were deployed for a couple of category two kaiju. Then two category three rose up from the depths of the breach, and Marshall Ukai had sounded the alarm for Crimson Swan.

Their jaeger. A rush of a project that Marshall Ukai had under wraps since he’d been on the lookout for Semi–months of work kept hidden and silent. Crimson Swan was born from the scraps of other jaegers that had been decommissioned or retired. And with a little influence in the right places, the Marshall had been able to pull parts from Oryx Wrath–Semi’s previous jaeger. 

The entire body was entirely coated in a faded deep red paint, leaving it exposed to the ivory white underneath. The left arm, looking still intact from when it was on the structure of Oryx Wrath, had been revamped from its previous earth tones to a pitch, shiny black. The engineers had left its previous jaeger number stamped on the arm, a white 13, varnished. Its current commission number 9 was painted black on the opposite arm.

From Oryx Wrath they had also taken the nuclear turbine. One modernized to be able to surge a heat shot straight through the body of a close range kaiju.

The first time Semi saw the jaeger, he’d starred. He had looked neither impressed, or shocked. Instead, he’d turned around to Kuroo and asked if they could go a few rounds in the kwoon room. 

That day, though, Semi and Kuroo wore matching smiles as they were both dressed in their drivesuits. 

That day, both Crimson Swan and Psychic Zenith were dropped in the pacific. 

But they ended on land, in a previously overrun city.

Kuroo and Semi had walked out of their jaeger, whole, each in one piece. But from Psychic Zenith Daichi had called for immediate relief.

And, hours later, Oikawa came out of surgery from a massive blow taken to the nerves in his already previously reconstructed knee from a battle years earlier. 

That night, Kuroo was woken up in their shared room, from rushed breathing by Semi. The other man was sitting up in his own bed, face in his hands as he rubbed his eyes with the bunt of his palms. Kuroo felt the subdued pressure on his own eyes, the clench and push mirroring Semi’s own movements. 

There was a faded scream, one the fell through the furthest back of his subconscious and he–

He realized–

Semi had a nightmare.

Less a nightmare but a reconstructed memory of the last time he’d been in a jaeger, actively fighting a kaiju. That Semi was seeing his partner ripped from the pit of their jaeger and thrown into the churning ocean. He was hearing that last scream, and feeling the ghost drift run through his veins once more. 

“Hey,” Kuroo whispered. He reached his arm out, across the space between their two beds. He willed the nerves between their drift to connect in the space, to clamp together–to once again allow Semi to feel whole and unbroken. The moment Semi realized Kuroo was awake was a jolt of lightning between them. The awareness that Semi came to happened like a ore slicing through water.

He stopped rubbing his eyes and faced Kuroo. The hair around his face was drenched in sweat, and his eyes were red in the dim light coming from above their sink. He stared at Kuroo’s hand.

Through the drift, in their space, he sensed Semi getting out of his own bed before he saw it happen. Kuroo raised the covers of his own bed, just as Semi rose from his.

The man settled with his back against Kuroo’s chest, allowing for Kuroo to wrap his arms around the other. The cloth of their shirts pressed closer than their skin. Semi’s muscles almost immediately unwound, exhaustion dripping and pulling his body into the mattress of the twin bed. 

“Don’t you think the two of us are too big for this?” Semi asked, voice a rasp. 

Kuroo hummed, pulling the man closer, “Not when we do this.”

Semi huffed out a laugh but he didn’t pull away. His back rose and fell with evening breaths, pushed against Kuroo’s chest. The leftover strain in his muscles fell.

Kuroo had thought Semi fell asleep, but then–

“I wanted to be in a band,” he whispered into the night.

Kuroo chuckled, soft against the pillow, and hoping for a laugh in return he said, “I know. I’ve been inside your head, remember?”

He only huffed out another breath of air, resembling his laugh, before pushing his head into the crook of Kuroo’s elbow. 

He was quiet again. Kuroo felt their connection tingle, tickle the back of his mind, their previous mind meld ran through their heads, as well as all of their other drift sequences. Each time one memory remained the same for Semi–

Getting his first guitar from his mom. Younger Semi takes the guitar from his mom, eyes shining, and the woman whispers, _“Be careful with that.”_

Semi scoffs, pulling them both out of the memory. “Isn’t that so stupid? All this shit going on around, and all I wanted to do was sing, play guitar.”

Kuroo’s breath fell over Semi’s neck. He tucked his nose into warm skin, damp from sweat. He didn’t think it was stupid at all. Everyone had their dreams, some type of reason to remain connected to the world even as it burned. They were all caught in the fire of kaiju raised from the pits of hell, so why couldn’t someone hold onto a piece of normalcy if it meant they could all escape this unscathed?

He sighed into the man’s neck. “It’s not stupid, if that keeps you alive. Keeps both of us alive, for one another.”

“And if all I want to do now is play the guitar?”

“Then let me sit and listen.”

Semi shifted under the covers, until he’d completely faced Kuroo. He leaned up on his elbow and allowed for Kuroo to look up to his shadowed gaze. The edges of his hair brushed just the curve of his neck, ends still dip dyed. His cheeks were highlighted and carved the deep cavern of his cheekbones, and his eyelashes were long enough that when he closed his eyes they licked the deep purple bruises caused by sleeplessness. 

He was tragically beautiful as he stared down on Kuroo. His skin was warm, hot, as he leaned close to Kuroo, until their noses brushed–

And Kuroo sighed as chapped lips touched his own–a scrape, an open wound, a brush of memories, the music of years before strayed across the bridge of their neural connection. Kuroo reached fingers up, dragged nails through the other man’s hair. He felt the other’s hum more than he saw it as a jolt of serenity poured between them, as the screams of nightmares fell back into their dark home.

  
  
  


~

_You wanna take a drink of that promise land_

_You gotta wipe the dirt off of your hands_

_Careful son, you got dreamer's plans_

_But it gets hard to stand_

~

  
  
  


The night the double event happened, everything had been normal. As normal as the end of times should have been.

Kuroo, taking Semi’s pale hand, running his thumbs over the clean veins pumping slow blood into the man’s system, could remember the night before in sickening clarity. 

The happiness as Semi and him walked from training with the other rangers, straight to the dining hall. Semi had bumped his shoulder walking close, smiles on their faces. Iwaizumi and Akaashi behind them, Oikawa just a step further trying to poke at Iwaizumi’s hair. Oikawa, who had been under intense rehab for his knee for several weeks, had been recently allowed back into normal training. Daichi had laughed when Iwaizumi caught the man’s hand and turned around to flick Oikawa in the face.

“ _Daichi you shouldn't laugh!”_

And then Akaashi smirked saying that Daichi _should_ be the one to laugh, when Oikawa was his co-pilot. 

Oikawa went on about feeling betrayed, and Semi looked up to the sky, whispering _why me,_ but he had a smile on his face. Kuroo easily dropped his arm over Semi’s shoulder and swooped in with a quick kiss on his cheek. 

They all ate dinner together, seated in the hall amongst the other jaeger teams–nine. They had nine teams now, not eight. It wasn’t much, Kuroo had thought at the time, but he knew they could do some damage.

They’d long finished eating–only the rangers left in the dining hall. Hinata chased Tsukishima around the room, spoon of jello in his hands, threatening to put it down his co-pilots shirt. Yukie and Akaashi were still trying to decide who could eat the most onigiri, and Kiyoko was tallying up numbers for both accounts. There was the sound of laughter climbing through the space as Tendou and Terushima tried to decide whether asphyxiation was a good kink or a bad one–and Kuroo, lacking oxygen from laughing so much had come to the decision that it was probably a good one in social instances.

Semi had disappeared from the dining hall for only a couple minutes, before coming back with his guitar in hand.

Oikawa had clapped in happiness, pushing everyone to sit at one table. And Kuroo watched, gazed, feeling the small smile on his lips grow as Semi came over, sat on the table, placing his booted feet on the chairs. He’d looked at home, smiling down at Kuroo.

And Kuroo had placed his head on the table, right next to Semi’s leg. Silence overcame the group of rangers.

Semi’s voice washed over the rangers, his fingers falling over the strings of the guitar, and he sang–

  
  


_–cause my head just aches when I think of_

_the things that I shouldn't have done_

_but life is for living, we all know_

_and I don't want to live it alone–_

  
  


Two, three, four times he sang through the lyrics of “Everything’s Not Lost,” voice growing softer as some of the rangers fell closer and closer to sleep.

Then the alarm rang.

Everyone was up from their places, sleep haze gone, and running for the shatterdome.

Marshall Ukai called for Obsidian Summer, White Stallion and–

Crimson Swan.

Respectively: Iwaizumi and Akaashi, Yukie and Kiyoko, and then the two of them.

One category four kaiju. With a crazed Takeda-san going on and on about how there should have been two, there _should_ have been two. He done all of his calculations–he had because Kuroo had been around for most of it. When it came to calculating when the next kaiju event happened, they were never off the mark. 

This time proved that.

Kuroo remembered them stepping into their jaegers–and everything after that was blurry. The fight with the first kaiju had lasted well over two hours, even with all three of the jaegers. They’d just sliced through two of its forearms, as well as its long but curved snout, when Marshall Ukai called over the comms that there was another kaiju rising.

Also a category four.

Iwaizumi’s very harsh _“shit”_ was something they all felt.

Ukai said they would be sending Venom Fury–a jaeger piloted by Tendou and Terushima–but warned they would need to hold off between the other two kaiju while they brought in another rotor aircraft for the other jaeger.

Kuroo bit his lip hard, chewing into the skin, as he thought about the rest of the night. How bad it was and how much worse it could have been.

The second kaiju that arrived moved fast, like a cheetah while the other lumbered around as if it were a hippopotamus. 

Kuroo and Semi had been backed towards land, amongst a harbor of ships, while the other two continued to batter on the first kaiju.

Semi screamed for Kuroo to grab what looked like a container ship–and they rammed it straight through the body of the second kaiju and _there_ it was supposed to be over. It should have been.

Until that same ship came back, hit them in their nuclear core, and the kaiju descended upon them with all the rage that a giant creature from the dark of the ocean could have.

“This one’s intelligent,” Semi whispered. 

Then–then the kaiju took a clawed fist and pounded on the head of their jaeger. The sharp claws broke Crimson Swan’s head. The seering rip of Semi’s skin caused Kuroo to scream and–

Kuroo sighed. He looked now at his partner, asleep in his hospital bed. The man could have been dead say for the low rise and fall of his chest.

But he was there, alive. The steady rhythm of the heart monitor was proof enough for that.

Kuroo held Semi’s hand. Running his fingers over the blue veins. Back and forth, steadying his own breathing to the quiet sounds of the hospital wing. Kuroo willed his own thoughts past the thrum of silence coming through Semi’s unconscious.

They were lucky. Not just Semi and Kuroo, but the other teams as well. They were all still in complete pieces. None of them had died. And, Kuroo knew they were going to have to take care of the Breach eventually. Some time they would need to send in their remaining teams, settle the battle for once and for all so none of them would have to be staring at their partners, at one another, settled in hospital beds like it was their permanent home. They would need to pick themselves up from their current wreckage, stitch themselves and their grim memories, once again walk with the crutch of one another–and throw themselves into the madness of the fight–and _god_ , Kuroo’s chest clenched tightly at the thought. How had some of these people gone through over ten battles, and made it out alive?

“‘Cuz,” Semi’s rough voice chimed, “they weren’t fucking cat-four’s.”

“Semi,” Kuroo breathed out, his relief flowing between the two of them. He scooted his chair closer, as Semi’s hand squeezed his own.

“You should have left me,” Semi blinked at the bright lights.

Kuroo balked. _Leave you?_ He opened his mouth but Semi interrupted.

“You absolute idiot,” he sighed, slowly turning to look at Kuroo. The man’s eyes were dark, overcast in thought. “You carried my body out of that jaeger. With whatever injuries already done to your body. You _felt_ it, Tetsu–I was already dead.”

Kuroo flenched. Cringed. He swallowed down the empty pit that had overcome his body when the jaeger slammed down on them–his own scream ripping through the air, the sharp pain that mirrored the rive of Semi’s large cut. The well had come back in that moment as Marshall Ukai tried to talk him through the comms. But stalagmites and their dripping cold, their icy numbness, the heavy iceberg in his chest–

“You’re my partner,” Kuroo whispered, as Semi squeezed his hand again, pulling him back into the now. He gazed at Semi–Eita, alive, alive, _alive–_

He curved himself towards Semi’s body, letting his nose press against Semi’s. “I wouldn’t leave you for anything.”

  
  
  


~

_quiet now, you're gonna wake the beast_

_hide your soul out of his reach_

_shiver to that broken beat_

_dark into the heat_

_soldier keep on marchin’ on_

_~_

**Author's Note:**

> well the tags said no one dies.... and i mean.... he's still ALIVE SO KJHGDFJK
> 
> ~~
> 
> here's a list of other jaegers and their pilots though if you wanted to know!!!:
> 
> jaegers and their pilots:
> 
> crimson swan (semi and kuroo)
> 
> obsidian summer (iwaizumi and akaashi)
> 
> psychic zenith (oikawa and daichi)
> 
> iron vapor (aone and someone)
> 
> eight aces (someone and someone oops)
> 
> royal moon (hinata and tsukki)
> 
> twin flame (osamu and atsumu)
> 
> white stallion (yukie and kiyoko)
> 
> venom fury (tendou and terushima)
> 
> ~~
> 
> thank y'all for reading!!! it was my first kurosemi fic but y'all..... i love them so much. please go check out the other works in the tag. they're amazing
> 
> scream about daichi with me???
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/spacedaichi)
> 
> [tumblr](https://spookysp-ace.tumblr.com/)
> 
> thank you for reading again :')) kudos and comments always welcome.


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